5. When is a horse in wretched case? When he is bereaved of his natural faculties; not when he cannot crow, but when he cannot run. When is a dog? Not when he cannot fly, but when he cannot track. Is not a man, then, also thus wretched, not when he cannot strangle lions or embrace statues[1]—for to this he came endowed with no faculties by Nature—but when he hath lost his honesty, his faithfulness? Surely we should meet together and lament over such a man; so great are the evils into which he hath fallen. Not, indeed, that we should lament for his birth, or for his death, but in that while yet living he hath suffered the loss of his own true possessions. I speak not of his paternal inheritance, not of his land, or his house, or his inn, or his slaves (for not one of these things is the true possession of a man, but all are alien, servile, subject, given now to some, now to others, by those that can command them); but of his human qualities, the stamps of his spirit wherewith he came into the world. Even such we seek for also on coins, and if we find them we approve the coins, and if not, we cast them away. What is the stamp of this sestertius? _The stamp of Trajan._ Then give it me. _The stamp of Nero._[2] Fling it away—it will not pass, it is bad. And so here too. What is the stamp of his mind? He is gentle, social, forbearing, affectionate. Come, then, I receive him, I admit him to citizenship, I receive him as a neighbor, a fellow-traveler. See to it only that he have not Nero’s stamp. Is he wrathful, revengeful, complaining? Doth he, when it may seem good to him, break the heads of all who stand in his way? Why, then, didst thou say he was a man? Shall everything be judged by the bare form? If so, then say that a wax apple is a real apple, and that it has the smell and taste of an apple. But the outward shape doth not suffice, nor are eyes and nose enough to make a man, but he is a man only if he have a man’s mind. Here is one that will not hear reason, that will not submit when he is confuted—he is an ass. In another, reverence hath died—he is worthless, anything rather than a man. This one seeketh whom he may meet and kick or bite—so that he is not even a sheep or an ass, but some kind of savage beast.